This invention relates to referenced content and more particularly relates to sharing referenced content through collaborative business applications.
Users commonly share content with other users by sending attachments in electronic communication such email or instant messages. As more content is being stored in server-managed repositories or online data stores, it has also become more common to share referenced content instead of the actual content. One example is when a file is not attached to an email, but instead a link is inserted into the body of the email representing the referenced file. Referenced content helps reduce inbox clutter, manage quotas, and ensures that the latest version of the file is available.
Online content is shared freely in social networks allowing easier access and enabling simpler sharing scenarios. Examples of these social sharing systems and network repositories include IBM Lotus products such as Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections, as well as products like Microsoft SkyDrive and Sharepoint.
However, the introduction of online storage of referenced content, social networks and sharing, and collaborative distribution applications like email and instant messaging, makes securely managing access to content in business environments difficult. In a business environment, governance and security often require stricter access control, as well as auditing of access. Some consumer social networking applications in which content is typically implicitly shared have tried techniques such as a “secret Uniform Resource Locator (‘URL’)” to make the content “semi-secure” in that a user would have to know or guess the URL to gain access to the content. While a secret URL may suffice for simple and free consumer based websites, a secret URL would be considered a security problem in enterprise grade software.
Furthermore, an organization will typically use a content management system that controls who may view, edit, or delete content in the organization. However, such content management systems require maintenance and updating to continually control who has access to what content.